By Lynda Myer
According to the final scoping report has found, in order to advancing the Kensington Expressway project in Buffalo, New York State, a six-lane tunnel is the best choice.
Considering the project’s intention, a six-lane tunnel with improved community connections at street level will be the best option and should be studied further.
Currently, the New York State Department of Transportation is allowed to commence the formal environmental assessment and preliminary design process.
“The project was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct an egregious planning failure of the past and give the residents of East Buffalo the connection to one another and to green space they have been deprived of for far too long,” said Governor Kathy Hochul.
The date of building Kensington Expressway is among 1950s and 1960s, while it replaced what had been a grand, tree-lined boulevard with a below-grade highway that severed the connection between the surrounding neighborhoods. Comprising of replacing bridges with the new tunnel to relink the east-west neighborhoods across the depressed section of the Kensington Expressway corridor in East Buffalo, the allocated budget for this project by Governor Hochul was US$1bn.
